Everton vs Liverpool: Is this what 'bottling it' looks like? Jurgen Klopp and his side must rise to title race challenge
A fourth draw in six games has seen a seven-point lead frittered away to a deficit of one in the space of eight weeks
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Your support makes all the difference.The game, and the question, had clearly got to Jurgen Klopp. Whether that means the pressure of a title race is getting to him is a bigger issue, but it was something the Liverpool manager couldn’t help but inadvertently touch on.
Klopp had been asked after the 0-0 with Everton about the low value of draws in such a title race, and whether he needed to take more risks. He did not take kindly to that, and snapped back in a catty manner that he can often be capable of when something has not gone his way.
“Do you think we didn't take enough risks today? That's a really disappointing question... do you think it's Playstation? Bring an extra attacker, and everything change? Football is not like that. We don't lose our nerve, not like you obviously. A question I don't get.”
It was Klopp himself that had raised the term “nerve”, but it’s perhaps just as well no one brought up that other phrase that had started to do the rounds at Goodison Park and beyond.
“Bottling it.” Is this, to be blunt, what it looks like?
It is not just that Liverpool had missed so many chances, or the evidently anxious way they were missed. And it certainly wasn’t that they’d "only" claimed a 0-0 at Goodison Park.
It was that all of these elements combined to make it a fourth draw in six games, to see a seven-point lead - and another chance to claim a seven-point lead - frittered away to actually fall to second in the space of just eight weeks.
That is a surprisingly pronounced drop-off, no matter what way you try and spin it.
The problem is also that a spin like “bottling it” is an inherently loaded phrase, that people then get even more emotional about.
It really just means allowing the pressure or nerves of a situation to negatively affect performance.
There are obviously a fair few factors influencing Liverpool’s form right now - from Klopp having to manage a shallower squad than City’s to the deeper fact their relentless early-season points return was always going to be unsustainable and level off - but “allowing the pressure or nerves of a situation to negatively affect performance” does also feel at least someway apt.
It is visible in the poor execution of chances, as well as finishing and decision-making that feels out of kilter with the way these forwards usually play.
It is visible in the hesitation of the attacking. It is visible in how that attack has suddenly stopped combining in the fluent manner that really made this team.
It is also maybe visible in Klopp himself.
His snappy reactions are one thing, although mostly a bit of pantomime that many managers are guilty of, but more relevant was the reason for the question.
There is an argument that he is making decisions that are at the very least more questionable than those from earlier in the season. He might obviously be right that bringing on an extra striker would have been counter-productive, but that was not actually what was being asked. The wonder was why he introduced James Milner over Naby Keita, especially given how the Guinean had seemed to be really coming on over his last few performances? And what of Xherdan Shaqiri? A player that was a genuine game-breaker before Christmas has now almost vanished from sight, and the manager’s plans.
There also just feels a general reticence to Liverpool right now.
So, while “nerves” are far from the team’s only problem, a greater problem is that all of these can combine to thereby create more nerves; to foster that situation.
It is a cycle they badly need to break, and just another frustration is that a draw like this so quickly followed what felt a landmark win against Watford.
The greatest frustration of all is that Klopp is quite clearly the greatest thing to happen to Liverpool in years, and has got them into a situation in this very race that few other managers would have been capable of… but that more self-inflicted problems than would have been expected may now threaten the dream as much as City.
There’s also the bigger challenge that, once you actually get in to a title race, the parameters change; the questions change. It’s necessarily more demanding and exacting because this is what it’s about. This is the level.
You have to rise to it, if you have any realistic intentions of winning it. There are very few “good draws” any more, especially not against a City putting up a points return like this, and especially after you’ve endured four such draws in quick succession.
But then this is a further problem with how loaded a phrase like “bottling it” is. It need not be terminal. And you only have to look at the example of when City ended their own long wait for a title, in 2011-12. Both they and Manchester United arguably “bottled it” twice each in that run-in.
Nerves can be overcome. Such situations can be overcome.
And that is what Klopp has to do now. He has find a proper response to this recent funk, beyond catty answers.
He has to work out a way of getting this attack consistently firing again, so that it properly complements a defence that remains on title-winning form. He has to get them looking like a team hungry for goals again, rather than one that looked anxious when presented with big chances.
"The boys are ready," he said in one of his calmer moments afterwards. He just has to help prove that.
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